Doom Now Accessible Within a PDF, Transforming Document Format

Doom's been ported to everything from toasters to refrigerators, seemingly leaving little room for truly novel platforms. However, a high school student has achieved the seemingly impossible: running Doom within a PDF file viewable in a browser.

While features like text and sound are absent, the ability to play E1M1 while procrastinating on taxes is undeniably appealing.

Github user ading2210, inspired by the TetrisPDF project, leveraged Javascript within a browser's PDF reader to accomplish this feat. Browser security limitations restrict the full potential of PDF scripting, but enough functionality remained to port Doom.

Using Javascript's computational capabilities and a six-color ASCII grid for visuals, ading2210 created a surprisingly playable, albeit slow (80ms per frame), version of Doom.

Although it won't replace your PS5, the accomplishment of running Doom inside a PDF file is remarkable for its legibility and ingenuity. TetrisPDF creator Thomas Rinsma even praised ading2210's version on Hacker News as "neater in many ways."

While not ideal for a first-time Doom experience, the ongoing trend of running Doom on unusual devices and file formats, including even gut bacteria, remains endlessly entertaining.